It’s a funny thing about sales charts, people only quote the ones they like! Here are NPD’s American Top 20 console games for the month of November, courtesy of Console Gold:
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PlayStation 2)
Metroid Prime (GameCube)
WWE Smackdown! Shut Your Mouth (PlayStation 2)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 (PlayStation 2)
Yu-Gi-Oh! Eternal (Game Boy Advance)
Madden NFL 2003 (PlayStation 2)
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (Xbox)
Lord Of The Rings – Two Towers (PlayStation 2)
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (PlayStation 2)
Metroid Fusion (Game Boy Advance)
Harry Potter – Chamber of Secrets (Game Boy Advance)
Kingdom Hearts (PlayStation 2)
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (Game Boy Advance)
Mario Party 4 (GameCube)
Frogger’s Adventure (Game Boy Advance)
Harry Potter – Chamber of Secrets (PlayStation 2)
ATV Off Road Fury 2 (PlayStation 2)
NBA Live 2003 (PlayStation 2)
Bond 007: NightFire (PlayStation 2)
Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube)
Let’s see…
11 PlayStation 2 games
5 GameBoy Advance games
3 GameCube games
1 (one) Xbox game, ranking 5 places below Metroid Prime
Keep in mind that these are the charts for America where Xbox is strongest and GameCube is weakest. Yep, the Xbox sure is obliterating the Cube. Yep, yep. And Metroid Prime is a huge failure because nobody knows the franchise anymore. Righto.
I was looking through my last issue of Game Informer (it’s no Next Generation, but I like parts of it) which had the October NSPD (sp?) chart, which was fairly similar. I can’t remember it exactly, except that Nintendo had a handful of top 10 titles, and the XBox had exactly 1. I can’t remember what it was, but it was a multiplatform title.
According to NPD Funworld, the only non-PS2 game in the October Top 10 was a GBA game. They don’t make the Top 20 publicly available, though.
But here’s the comment from lokiju who posted the chart on Console Gold: “I am going to faint when I see more than one Xbox title in the top twenty!” So I guess you remember correctly except that Nintendo and Microsoft were battling it out in ranks 11-20.
well if you think about it, even though the GC has more titles in the top 20, it is gettting constantly outsold by the Xbox in hardware except for maybe this month? Its a shame really…
I was wondering about that, too. The obvious guess: people buy the Xbox for Halo. Many gamers want to play Halo, so this translates to a lot of Xboxes sold. But once they’ve played Halo they find little else of interest, so they don’t buy many more Xbox games.
Now the total number of gamers interested in the Cube might be lower than those who want to play Halo, but once they have a Cube they buy lots of titles, not just a single one. And that translates into more Top 20 entries overall for Nintendo.
Or it could be that the main audience of Nintendo, young gamers, are getting stuff for Christmas, causing a spike in sales. The main audience of Xbox, older gamers, spend money on games at a much more even rate throughout the year.
Or it could have something to do with Canada. I’m not sure.
I’ve only bought 1 game for my gamecube. I’ve been extremely disappointed in the games for it, and wish I would have bought my Xbox first. I decided in favor of the Gamecube because I hoped all of their existing franchises would pan out–a true Metroid sequel, a new Zelda game, and a continuation of the Super Mario Bros franchise. I think Metroid Prime was a highly overrated game, the new Zelda looks like ass, and Super Mario Sunshine ruined an otherwise great series. Eternal Darkness remains the only GC-exclusive title that I’ve enjoyed at all.
Edit: Whereas on my Xbox, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Munch’s Oddysee, Halo, Splinter Cell, Steel Battalion, Mech Assault, Rallisport, and all of the cross-platform titles look way better on Xbox.
What we’re mostly seeing here is that the PS2 has an installed base ratio of about 5:1 (or more) to both Xbox and GC. So, to get into the top 20, an Xbox or GC game has to be purchased by a far higher percentage of console owners. It would be more illuminating, vis-a-vis GC vs. Xbox, to remove the PS2 from the sales data.
The generally held theory about GC is that, for whatever reason, GC owners (children?) tend to buy a few key titles and practically ignore the rest of the library.
The TRSTS data (through oct) I posted supports this theory, particularly the median sales figures of only ~20k for all GC titles. Hearing other industry types anecdotally post here about how multiplatform titles do great on the PS2, okay on the Xbox, and poorly on the GC also supports this theory. And then there is Sega’s announcement that they’re going to drop the GC ports of their sports titles-- later begrudgingly amended to “maybe we will”, but that’s a hell of a thing for an official Sega rep to say in public. Sports games are HUGE sellers on consoles and even mentioning that you may drop them is, IMO, a really big sign of trouble.
With regards to Metroid Prime, as I’ve said all along: it won’t outsell Mario Sunshine, which in turn did not outsell Super Smash Bros Melee. I have to agree with that Japanese financial analyst here: Nintendo’s real hope is with Zelda.
Later in January once the Xmas frenzy is over and the sales data is all in, we can analyze that and declare a “winner” for second place. Based on the existing trends, I’m fairly confident that will be Xbox, but we’ll have to let the data speak for itself.
Cross-platform titles look “way better” on the Xbox? I know I’m blind, but I see just a marginal difference, if that.
Well, it depends on the title. The Xbox version is probably going to load/save faster (due to the HDD and greater memory capacity), it will have dolby digital 5.1 sound, and probably a better framerate.
However, on graphics alone, multiplatform titles tend to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator-- the PS2. So I agree, visually the difference may not be that large. And that’s what the average guy on the street sees. Most developers don’t put a lot of effort into making the GC or Xbox ports look a whole lot better.
Try NHLHitz 2003. It is grainy and laggy and crappy on the PS2 but looks amazing and runs much faster on the Xbox. Titles that are programmed directly for the PS2 tend to look pretty good. Cross platform may look ok on the PS2 but generally range from somewhat better to strikingly better on the Xbox.
Well, it depends on the title. The Xbox version is probably going to load/save faster (due to the HDD and greater memory capacity)
It would be nice if that were true, but it isn’t. Typically, those that own both GC and Xbox agree that the Gamecube is faster in both loading and saving. Memory cards will always be faster than disks of any kind. The GC discs, because of their size, reduce loading to almost nil on most games.
The generally held theory about GC is that, for whatever reason, GC owners (children?) tend to buy a few key titles and practically ignore the rest of the library.
…and which would you rather have? A number of key titles that people actually really want that can sell large numbers making your system sought after or a bunch of mediocre selling games that might break even, but do nothing to stop the argument that your console is loaded with a bunch of average games and ports with no real draw except your one big hit?
Your logic is ridiculous, wumpus.
The thing you fail to realize is that Nintendo games often sell well for longer periods of time. The drop off is never as severe as it is with 3rd party games on other consoles. Case in point…Mario Party 4…which has continued to sell well on the Cube in both the US and Japan long after its initial release. The list also supports this with Super Mario Sunshine still coming in at #20 overall for the month despite it shipping in August.
Even if it were true that the Gamecube load times are quicker because of the memory card size… that memory card size is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Want to play through a Madden franchise? Buy a memory card just for that. Fills up the whole thing. Ridiculous.
Buy a memory card just for that. Fills up the whole thing. Ridiculous.
They have one with 251 blocks now. It’ll hold Madden data and a whole lot more. But you can’t blame Nintendo for the game’s creators using the entire card for saving. Most games use 1 to 3 blocks of the 59 on a standard memory card.
Yeah…it’s just like with the twenty dollar bill and all those gizmos on TV! If the government wouldn’t make that damn twenty so worthless then I could buy the clapper AND a chia pet and have money left over! Now, I buy the clapper and I only get 5 cents back!
